Citi's World of Promise

The banking giant's new CEO vows to wring more profit from its global franchise. Why shareholders should pay heed.

Citigroup marked its bicentennial in 2012 with a management shake-up, putting bankers in charge of the global banking company for the first time since John Reed's retirement in 2000. After Reed, the nation's third-largest bank by assets was led by an investment banker, Sandy Weill; a lawyer, Chuck Prince; and then a hedge-fund manager, Vikram Pandit. But on April 17, 2012, Michael O'Neill, a former Marine known for whipping Bank of America into shape in the late '90s and turning around Bank of Hawaii, was elevated to chairman of the board, succeeding Richard Parsons, a lawyer and former chief of Time Warner best...